


keep me in faded colors

by iwaoidk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Angst, M/M, Sadness, blame h er, dont blame me, i am literally apologizing before you read this, i guess, idk throw me in the trash, kurotsuki - Freeform, my friend requested this okay, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwaoidk/pseuds/iwaoidk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I can't stop thinking about when you were in the hospital <strike>towards the end</strike> and I tried to kiss you. You turned away, Kei. Pressed your cheek into the pillow and made sure my lips couldn't get to yours. I felt like there was lightning in my toes and a hurricane in my head. I asked you why and you said, "The hardest part of this is leaving you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep me in faded colors

** Day 1:**

**The therapist gave me a journal to write my feelings in for a month. She says it's supposed to help. Says it's going to make me feel better.**

**But I don't really see how that's possible when I don't have you.**

**I'm not sure if this was meant to be something where I jot down what I'm feeling or maybe talk about my day. I'm not sure if I should use this type of pen to write with because I think it'll bleed through the pages so maybe I'll switch to penc** il. Yeah. I think pencil is better. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure of much these days.

But whether I'm to use this as an actual diary sort of thing or maybe just a catalog of my life's events, I think I'm just going to pretend I'm talking to you. When I told the therapist that this is how I'm gonna use the journal, she looked at me funny. 

I didn't think people who are paid to listen were supposed do that.

You know, you were never paid to listen to me. But you still did. You always looked at me, Kei. Looked at me like I was all that existed. And I miss that so much. I remember how when you'd take off your glasses, it was different. People aren't supposed to see well without their glasses. But when you took them off, and those eyes just looked at me, I felt. I don't know. I felt like there was a quiet storm right underneath you and it could sense all that was inside me.

I miss you.

I wonder what it was like in your last few days. I wonder if you were counting down the hours. I wonder if you were looking for a suit to wear when you had to be shut away forever. 

The hardest part is not having you anymore.

It's only been a day. I don't feel like it's sunk in yet. I feel like you're just visiting your parents again and that's why you weren't in bed last night. That's why there was no coffee roasting this morning when I woke up. That's why the milk hasn't been restocked in the fridge yet. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow, it'll be true. I really hope so.

I just feel numb. Like I just got paralyzed emotionally and my brain isn't ready to fully feel yet so it'll hold off. All I can seem to hear is those piano chords in the intro to the sad songs you'd listen to sometimes. And all I can seem to see is a shock of blonde hair and golden eyes and a smile that was rare but it was so, so beautiful. I had this theory, you know, Tsukki. It was that whenever you smiled, the world got a little brighter. It didn't happen often. But when it did, I'm sure the sun had more motivation to shine.

Maybe I can just pretend I'm writing you a sappy love letter and that I'll give it to you when you're back from visiting your family. But I don't know what I can tell myself when you don't come home tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after.

I'll see you this weekend for sure. That's when the funeral is. 

This ~~would have made~~  makes me the worst boyfriend in the world, but I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go to a stuffy church where the dust has no final destination but my lungs, and then it'll get in my eyes and that's exactly what I'll blame when I start crying. I don't wanna go see you in some weird wooden box thing and you're dressed in a suit and I know, I just  _know_   that the first thought when I see you is that  _god, you look so beautiful._   It's always been my first thought when I see you. But it won't be the same this time. You won't be able to slide your eyes away when I say it, you won't be able to hide your warm face in my neck and I can't run a hand down your back. I can't. You can't. We can't.

I think I'm going to stop here.

 

Day 4:

I've never been a writer, Tsukki. Except maybe the occasional "I love you" on cards in the bouquets you'd take. You'd always tell me how I shouldn't have wasted my time for something that's going to die but I never regretted it. ~~And here I am and I can say I didn't regret you.~~

Your funeral is about to start. I'm in my car still. I don't know why I haven't gotten out. Or maybe I do. I don't know. And I don't know why I still feel numb. It all still feels fake, feels surreal, feels like you'll sit up from the backseat and slap the back of my head. 

But I guess the church in front of me should be as good as a sign as any that it isn't going to happen. 

I see your family's car pulling in a few spots over. I'm not gonna watch them get out. They're going to look like you, they're going to  _remind_ me of you and I don't think I can handle that. I'm just going to look at this paper. And I won't look up.

This doesn't feel right. None of this feels right. My face is starting to get too warm and now I'm biting my lip and I'm scared, I'm so scared. Tsukki, I don't want the numbness to go away. I don't want to miss you. I sound so bad right now. I don't want to realize that I need you alive because everything will crash, or maybe it has crashed and I'm too busy pushing away the destruction to realize just what it is. Destruction. God, no. No. No no no no. 

I don't want any of this. I don't want anything. I just want you.

 

Day 8:

The funeral passed.

And I guess everything sank in. That's why I haven't written for four days. The therapist finally forced me to pick the pencil up again. But I didn't want to.

It happened mostly when I was standing in front of your photograph. I felt angry. I felt really angry. You looked so happy, Tsukki. Red cheeks and healthy skin and light eyes and the smallest curl of smiles and the smile, it drove me crazy, because it was an old picture and I didn't know why you were smiling but I wanted to know, I wanted to know so desperately but it's too late to find out now and it was the type of smile where you looked like you're hiding a secret you'd take to your grave but Tsukki I didn't want anything to ever be this literal. It didn't look anything like you in the last few days. Your lips were chapped and faded and I remember, I remember you asked me to get you a glass of water and your voice sounded like it hurt the air and I hated it so much. 

I remember you asking me to start a eulogy. I remember it. And I went home and as soon as I stepped through the door, I tripped over the shoes I took off and I didn't bother to get up, didn't want to, didn't want to move or think or function for that matter, and I remember how I wouldn't breathe for the longest time and kept telling myself that maybe if I held my breath long enough then I could give it to you towards the end. 

But I did it for you, Kei. Wrote the eulogy. Because you wanted me to. I presented it yesterday too. I hope you watched, wherever you are. I hope you liked it. Because I didn't.

I'm bad with words, in case you haven't figured yet.

I miss you. I miss you, miss you if you could belittle it enough to call it that. I miss everything and my hand is cramping and if you were here for me to tell you then I'm so sure that your hand would be in place of the pencil in my fingers and I want it Tsukki I don't want this fucking piece of wood and graphite but I want you I want you and your warm skin and the freckle on your knuckle and the way you looked at me when I wasn't looking back.

And now I'm starting to cry, and I can't breathe and it's making me feel so mad because it makes me want to do that thing again where I try to hold my breaths and give them back to you.

 

Day 9:

I think I cried so hard last night that I got sick. I didn't know that was possible. If you were here then you'd punch my shoulder and tell me not to be stupid, to take care of myself better, and you'd give me tissues and go make tea and I want that. I have to sound like a delirious idiot filled with redundancy but I think that's exactly what I am. I'm stupid and all I can do is repeat myself about what you'd do if you were here.

I went to visit you today, Tsukki. Your gravestone is actually kind of pretty, like you ~~were~~ are. You're so pretty. I'm awful with descriptions. You even had to help me with my literature classes even though you're a few years younger. But all I can say is that I could look at you all day, all week, all year, and all my life and I'd never want to blink.

But I went to visit you. And I brought asters. You never did like flowers, like I said, but you did like asters. Or maybe you liked what they symbolize. "A variety of love." That's you. Always looking past what you can see, even if it sounds impossible. But I felt like the asters fit. I felt like I love you. In a variety. I can't word it right. But I love you in so many ways, for so many reasons, and I will forever. I have a variety of love for you. I love you the way I love something just. Like. Something. Something you've been waiting to buy forever and you just got it and it makes you so happy. But at the same time I love you the way someone has these shoes that they've had for years and they still make it a point to wear them every day because they're so comfortable and easy. And mostly, I love you the way someone loves someone that they've been searching for desperately. None of that clashes just right, none of that sounds even remotely accurate, and I'm sorry I can never do you justice.

It's gonna be a habit. A ritual. I promise. I'll go see you every day and lay an aster and spend some time with you. It won't compare to really being with you though. You make things beautiful. And even the wind on my cheeks when I'm crying won't feel right anymore.

It's just that it hurts to breathe right now without you doing it with me.

 

Day 11:

I've been trying to stay constant. I went ~~to your grave~~ to see you yesterday, and I'm sitting on the grass next to you right now. I brought an aster, and it's some twist of pink and red. Like your lips when we kissed a lot. I want to kiss you, Tsukki. I just want to touch your fingertips and I want to bring you close and I want to hear your breaths in my ear because you're just by my side and. And Tsukki. _Why can't I have that?_

I want skin instead of a gravestone and I want hair to run my fingers through instead of grass and I want to put the flowers in your palm, in your palm.

I keep thinking of the first date we went on and I want to curl into myself and sleep for a few years. The best memories are the ones that are hurting now and I don't want it to be that way. I don't want bittersweet, I just want sweet. And I can't have everything I want, that was made painfully obvious twelve days ago.

But our first date. 

You know, I took you to that park because you reminded me of the swans that were always near the pond. Long, beautiful, always moved with some fluent grace that made me want to capture you. I didn't know if you'd like it or not and I was scared out of my mind, Tsukki. I lay down the blanket on the grass and part of me wanted a really awfully cliché picnic date. But then you lay down beside me and all the scenarios in my head burned to none and the only thing I could think to do was put my arm under your head and pull you close. You were tense, incredibly tense. "I don't cuddle on first dates," you said. I didn't pull away. I guess I don't know why. I just couldn't. Didn't want to either. But you fell asleep eventually, and you relaxed right next to me. And it just sorta struck me that we fit well. More than well. We fit perfectly, all my crevices fitting into yours and it was like we were puzzle pieces, and that sounds so bad and romantic and over-said but it's true. And when you were asleep, Kei, I took the time to just appreciate the view. Not the pond, not the clouds or the sky, but you. Your lips were parted, and it was slight. Really slight, but just enough for air to go in and out. And you didn't have that little frown in your forehead either. I wonder if you ever realized that there was an eyelash on your cheek later. I wanted to brush it off, but at the same time I really didn't. I wanted it to stay there. People make wishes on eyelashes and even though it was yours, not mine, I wished on it. I wished (even though it was our first date) we'd be together forever. 

It didn't work. I guess I shouldn't wish on what doesn't belong to me.

 

Day 15:

I bought coffee on the way back from visiting you. 

The barista at the shop wrote their number on my cup and I feel so wrong inside. I threw it away. With the coffee still inside.

You were actually the first boy I ever gave my number to, with any interest of romance. You asked for it before I asked for yours. And whenever I'd tease you about it, you just insisted, "It was for communicating for tips on blocking practice. But if you spam me with with texts I'll be the one blocking you." I was almost dead when you texted me the first time. Didn't know how to reply, didn't know how to think or type. 

I'm sitting on the couch right now and I miss the way we'd have to almost wrestle in order to get in a cuddling position. Two guys trying to spoon and being over one-eighty centimeters isn't exactly easy. It was always worth the struggle. You were always worth the struggle. I miss you so much. It isn't even an emotion for me anymore, the longing. It feels like a characteristic now. I close my eyes and see you leaning into the breeze and I open them and you aren't there. 

I can talk about how much I want you and I can say your name over and over and I can hope that maybe when the last syllable is out, you'll be here and it'll be different. 

It won't do anything good for me though.

I just want to be with you and I don't care about anything else. My mind is all over the place. Like train tracks that intersected at the wrong place. I try to tell a story and then I'm hit with this horrible feeling of you, and you and you and you, and I drop everything and all I can think about is glasses over hazel eyes and hair that I have to reach up to touch.

I guess a train track is intersecting again. I'll tell you this. When I was throwing my coffee away, I saw a stray cat run by. It was chasing a crow. 

I ran back into the coffee shop to go to the bathroom. I cried.

 

Day 17:

It just hit me that it's been over two weeks without you and I guess that just makes it more real.

I visited you yesterday, of course. But today, I didn't go alone. 

That one kid who always followed you around came to see me today. Yamaguchi Tadashi. Blubbering and blubbering about how much he missed his best friend, and he kept stressing on how  _pathetic_ it was that you bit the dust before he did. I don't know what it was with the whole pathetic thing but he wasn't in good shape either. Sweet guy.

We spent the day just walking around the city. Pointing to places we've been with you. We walked with a gap right between us, a space for you to join in if you were there. It almost felt like you were. I took Yamaguchi to buy asters. I don't think he understood entirely the reason for the specific flower when I tried to explain to him. But that's okay. You can understand, and that's all I need. We took them to your grave afterwards. He started quivering again and I finally got him to sit down. And we just looked at your gravestone. Sat there. Shoved the wind when it shoved us. 

I cried too. But I don't think he saw it.

He looked like a puppy who just got left behind when its family moved away. Lost, utterly confused, sad. I didn't blame him. 

When we stood up to leave, he started crying even harder. Salty tears over freckles, and he just starts wailing about how he was taller than you for once, but he never wanted it to be like this.

I don't think I've ever understood someone so well.

 

Day 20:

I saw the high school team for the first time in a while today.

I think that shorty from Karasuno got the word to Lev, and Lev told everyone else. 

They saw me and didn't know what to do.

The captain with the electrified hair and the feline smirk was just the ex-captain with the electrified hair and the dead face. Well. It's not only my face that's dead. I feel completely dead. I'm just a shadow I guess. There's not much to me left but physical form.

First thing that happened was Yamamoto slapping me on the back. And then Yaku hugged me. They all just formed this circle around me, like some sort of protective barrier. 

"We know you loved him. He loved you too. A lot," was what Nobuyuki said. And while Yaku is hugging me, I just started sobbing in his arms. Just. Started crying and weeping on the spot and they're all wondering what to do. When I stopped sniffling, Yaku pulls away and just looks at me, like he's trying to figure something out. I hope he tells me when he finds out whatever it was. I don't think he will though.

Kenma just steps forward and his face is  _fond,_ it's really damn sympathetic and sad and I know I must have been a mess for him to look at me that way.

"It was plain to anyone who even walked by that he cared for you. He really did, Kuroo. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget it."

It should have been a really uplifting gesture, should have picked up my head. But all I could understand was the word 'cared.' You  _cared._

Past tense. 

 

Day 22:

It's 5 am and I can't take this. I can't take it, Tsukki.

I forgot to visit you yesterday.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry. ~~I didn't. Fuck can't~~

I just couldn't sleep last night. I couldn't sleep, couldn't sleep with that empty air pressed into my side where you should be. Couldn't sleep without you fucking beside me, couldn't sleep without my arms around your waist and your head on my chest and I haven't been sleeping at all Tsukki, can't sleep can't eat can't think and my head hurts so much right now. I couldn't sleep last night and that meant that as soon as it was around late morning, I dropped into this coma of fatigue and I didn't really sleep sleep but more like pass out and I had nightmares and they were about losing you and as soon as I woke up I realized that it wasn't so make-believe anymore and I started crying all over again and Tsukki I'm a mess. 

I slept far until the night came and they close the cemetery at nine. But I couldn't help it couldn't help it I got in the car and I drove to see you because I can't not visit you and I got to the gates and the guard people stopped me and I'm standing there and there's an aster in my hands and I can't really understand what's going on except I miss you, I miss you so. And I'm starting to get hysterical and the people who close the cemetery and stuff are looking really concerned and then I started crying, I'm really good at crying these days, and then I just kept thinking about helping your family gather all your things and I'm thinking about how you were buried in your favorite colors and then I'm a sobbing wreck in front of the gates.

I couldn't get to you, Tsukki. They wouldn't let me through.

But I stood in front of the gates and even though they wouldn't let me through I stayed anyways just standing there with an aster in my hands and my eyes on the sky and then I sat down on the ground because I felt the wind pushing through my lungs and I just looked up and I saw the moon and it hurt. The moon hurts to look at because you're always just like the moon, like it so much, in darkness you're all I see, and I leaned against the gates and I started thinking about how the stars don't come close to shining as bright as you do and I closed my eyes and the tears burned so bad against the wind that I didn't open them and I guess I fell asleep.

That's why it's five in the morning and I'm writing. I'm still in front of the cemetery gates.

I'll bring two asters tomorrow to make up for yesterday.

 

Day 26:

I'm so tired.

I don't even remember the last few steps I took. 

All I know is that my head is hurting and I have a hangover and it's at the time when no one should be awake. 

I don't know why I got drunk. Or I do. I did it so I didn't have to think. Alcohol is supposed to make you feel the way you should when you don't have it.

I just grabbed something from the fridge and when I realized that it wasn't water I didn't really care. I just kept going. And going. And then I'm falling to the bathroom floor and I promise that I saw you, Kei. I swear I saw you and you looked like you were standing right in front of me and I just remembered how pretty you were at everything and that makes no sense but you've always just been so  _pretty,_ Kei. But you were standing up and you were looking at me on the bathroom floor and you had to look down to see me and it made me feel scared and I'm sorry if I made you upset. But all I could think about was how good it felt to have those eyes on me again and to have that skin so so close. And then I started feeling sick, and my stomach hurt a lot. And I went over to the toilet and I was still on my knees and you held some pieces of hair from my face when I started to throw up and your fingers were so gentle.

But then I turned around and you weren't there.

And then I started to heave some more and I felt sick but nothing else came out.

I'm not sure if this time it was from the alcohol.

 

Day 28:

This morning, I was actually disappointed. Because I woke up. I didn't want to. I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear that. Or read it. But I just really wish I hadn't woken up.

I'm awful just to see. It's like you constantly complaining about how you were 'soggy from the chemo' and I feel like I'm soggy from not having you. It's like all my strength is gone. I swear I hear something creaking inside my chest every time I breathe. 

I can't stop thinking about when you were in the hospital ~~towards the end~~ and I tried to kiss you. You turned away, Kei. Pressed your cheek into the pillow and made sure my lips couldn't get to yours. I felt like there was lightning in my toes and a hurricane in my head. I asked you why and you said, "The hardest part of this is leaving you." 

My teeth are chattering now. I don't know why. It's really hot outside. My hands are always really cold too. You'd complain about it all the time, and I'd slip my hands under your shirt and touch your skin and you'd shout at me and try to turn but by then I had my arms around you and you turned around in my arms and all I had to do was pull you closer until our lips touched and it hurts so much, Tsukki I want you back so badly I don't want to do this anymore.

This is a horrible thing to say and I'm sorry for saying it. 

But I wish it had been me who died.

 

Day 31:

The therapist says I don't have to write anymore. She says my month is up but I think it's an excuse because she's getting worried. I gave her my journal to read when she asked and she kept pulling her eyebrows together and her lips did that straight flat line that yours did when you were angry or worried.

I don't care. I'm gonna keep writing. It's the only way I can feel like I've still got you.

I'm sitting on the grass beside your grave right now and if I close my eyes and tilt my head I can smell you, smell the scent of vanilla bean and fresh wood that you always seemed to carry around. And if I turn my head to the left and squeeze my eyes shut even more, I can hear the way you'd laugh when I accidentally hit my head on a doorway that you'd ducked under. And if I lay down just right and really really think hard, I can feel you pressed into my side and I can feel the wind pushing us closer together.

One time when I was leaving the hospital after visiting you, and I said "Bye, Tsukki," you asked me to be true.

I didn't know what it meant. I thought about it for the next half hour, and then hour, and then hours, and then days and weeks and I think I just figured it out.

People say goodbye when they leave each other. I think you were asking to leave. Not leave _me_  exactly, but leave the world. The doctors put your chest in pain and you were just sentenced to staying in bed all day. You couldn't do anything except breathe, and that was hard enough already. You were losing your will towards the end and every time I think of that, I feel like everything is falling from my body and I'm empty.

Pretty soon, your breath was taken away. I hated it but I was there when it happened. People say that when someone dies, they look at peace and they look happy, and they're calm and sleeping. But when you died, your chest just stopped moving and the light behind your eyes went away and you sort of sank into the pillow and you just looked. Dead.

I still have the aster in my hands. I'm setting it on your grave right now. I'm shaking and counting the syllables of your name and comparing them to my heartbeat.

Just so you know, when I was saying goodbye that day, I didn't want to be true.

 

Day 35:

I went to the jewelry store today, Kei.

I picked out two rings. I never got to propose, you know. I always talked about it but we were cut short. So I went in today and chose them. They're just simple gold bands, no real big studs of gems or anything. I know you despised overly-fancy things. But there actually  _is_ a small diamond embedded on the inside of them both. I like it. No one can see it, or know it's there, unless you're the one wearing it. It's a something beautiful that you like to keep secret. 

Reminds me of you.

When I was checking them out, the cashier smiled at me and asked, "For someone special?"

I just nodded and said, "Very."

You're more than 'very special' though, Tsukki.

I'm going to go to your grave tomorrow and set one of the rings on your grave. I'll leave it there. It'll be yours, and yours only. No one else's. You're the only one I've ever wanted to marry. Even though you aren't here to give me an answer, my proposal is always gonna be yours.

I don't think I'll ever have one for anyone else.

 

Day 36:

I'm in the car now.

I'm in a suit too. It's not the same one that I wore to your funeral. It's a different one. I went and bought it yesterday when I was out for the rings. It's all black, and the button-down underneath is white. The suit jacket isn't buttoned and I'm not wearing a tie though. That makes it feel too serious.

Like the rings, I didn't want to be too fancy.

I can't wait to propose, Tsukki. I'm going to look insane, on my knee and holding up a ring to a gravestone.

But it's okay.

I'm far past the point of caring what other people think. 

I have my ring on already. I think metal is supposed to be cold but I can't feel it. Maybe you're right. My hands are too cold all the time.

I'm waiting at a stoplight right now on the street where I kissed you once. I've kissed you in a lot of places. I just wish I could do it here right now, Kei. I really miss the way your lips would push back against mine and it always just felt so right. I don't think I'm ever going to kiss anyone again. I don't want to.

Hold on. The people behind me are honking. I'll keep writing when I'm stopped again.

 

-

 

Kei, oh my god I was driving across the intersection and the ring box fuck I had the ring box on the dashboard. It started to slide because I was turning and it fell on the floor somewhere in the car.

I'm stopped right now in the middle of the intersection. I don't care if this is illegal. I need to find it.

It's not under the passenger seat. I scratched my hand when I was reaching under it and I kept pushing around and it isn't there. It isn't in the space where you put your legs either.

I'm starting to cry now. I'm leaned over in the seat and writing and I'm crying because I can't find the ring. Tsukki, I lost the ring just like I lost you.

I'm sorry.

I hear everyone honking because I'm in the way of every direction but I can't care anymore. I just can't. 

Someone is holding the horn on their car and they won't let up but they wouldn't understand why I'm here in the first place. Their horn is getting louder and I don't understand why, because you can't turn volume up on car horns. It's so loud it's like they're beside me, it sounds like they're getting closer and cl


End file.
